The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics
AI data center demand for HBM memory is pricing out cheap consumer smartphones globally.
“a single gigabyte of HBM consumes more than three times the wafer capacity that a gigabyte of DDR or LPDDR does”
AI GPU demand has pushed HBM's share of global memory wafer capacity from 2% to an expected 20% by end of 2026, crowding out LPDDR production used in consumer devices. Because HBM is far more wafer-intensive per gigabyte, memory manufacturers are structurally constrained from serving both markets simultaneously. The downstream effect is already visible in sub-$100 smartphones, with major implications for emerging markets in Africa and South Asia.